Biography
Angelica Centeno was born in San Juan Puerto Rico, but at three years of age, her family moved and raised her in the Tampa Bay area. For most of her life she felt caught in the middle of two cultures, not necessarily fitting into either culture wholly enough to feel like she belonged. In middle school she found a way to belong to a group without cultural boundaries, through her love of Japanese animation and comics. She was able to find a group of like minded peers who shared a similar love for the mediums, as well as a passion for drawing. In the spring of her Sophomore year of high school, she finally decided to take drawing seriously and become an illustrator… somehow. During this time as well, she enjoyed writing, often even eager to write boring school essays, although during this time she didn’t believe she could make a career out of it.
After a short stint at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, she truly began her art career when she began at Ringling College of Art and Design. Her first two years were an amazing development in both her technique and style, especially during her sophomore spring and junior fall semesters. During this time she had the amazing opportunity to have illustration courses with Joe Thiel, a long time and rather infamous professor in the department. Under his guidance she learned that to be a successful illustrator, one must create in a way they enjoy, and not to draw what they think illustration should be.
His advice may have gone too far in her head because in the summer before her junior year, she changed majors from Illustration to Visual Studies. During this time she had become frustrated with some of the courses she was required to take, such as painting, and wanted to focus on a passion that had been simmering in the background for years, making comics. Now that Angelica finally pinpointed what she wanted, she knew that she would not make the same mistakes as she did in Chicago. That alongside beginning her minor in creative writing, which revived the old passion of hers, she found a new source of inspiration and energy within her works, she felt like she was complete, as she now had her trifecta of writing, comics, and illustration.
Using all three, Angelica is determined to create stories and narratives that help and inspire others that may feel underrepresented, such as those in the LGBTQIA+ sphere, people of color, and those dealing with mental health, just to name a few. During her upbringing, she had discovered that she was not alone in many of her thoughts and issues. She did not discover this through her peers, rather, the shows and books she read, such as Steven Universe. Although the story seemed to be a basic children’s story of intergalactic crystal warriors, it had deep themes focused on emotional dependency, trauma, abuse, and learning to let go and handle the pain that life may have thrown at you. The show also featured a bright and diverse cast of characters from all backgrounds and lifestyles. She hopes to do the same with her stories, applying her past experiences and trauma and transforming them into stories which feature varied casts of unique characters.
During her first semester, she completed a short story called Renee, Live on Air! which featured a StoryTeller at a talk show trying to cope as they get their profession, identity, and beliefs picked apart. She also completed a one page comic called Feeling Hole, which was about learning to open up again after being hurt. Currently, she is working on Sweet Squad, a webcomic about a girl in a superhero team whose powers hadn't been unlocked, and she must learn to accept whatever power she may have, as long as it can save her friends. Finally her senior thesis is a comic adaptation of Carmilla, by Sheridan LeFanu, a sapphic vampire story published 26 years prior to Brahm Stoker’s Dracula.